Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Control Freak?

Signs of a control freak:

1. Complain that the the homework help at your child's after school care is severely lacking.
2. The site director personally helps your child.
3. Still not happy because you only get to check over it and make sure it's correct.

Hi, I'm Terri and I just discovered that I'm a control freak. I did not know this about myself...okay so maybe I had a small inkling up til now. Sure, I didn't want anyone else to help in caring for my baby. 'I don't care that I haven't slept in three days put the baby down and step slowly away from the bottle.'  My mom had to pry him from my arms and make me leave my first day back to work. But all moms working outside the home go through that. I'm not controlling in every aspect only when it comes to my kids and other things that I'm passionate about.
 After what happened in kindergarten. My fault, I left way too much of his care in the hands of someone else whom I thought was going over his homework and doing the things he needed for school only to discover that my children were being parked in front of television for hours every afternoon. The disruption to his life surrounding this caregivers sudden departure from his life also resulted in behavioral difficulties in school. Luckily, I wasn't too late to salvage his kindergarten education. Partly because he picks up things so quickly he wasn't that far behind. This incident has left me with a sour taste.
But all working mothers have to relinquish some control over the lives of their children. Whether one works out of choice or necessity...for 4 or 14 hours a day or any combination of shifts. When we are away from our kids we give part of their rearing and education to someone else. Depending on your views this can be good, bad or mute. It's not a one size fits all sort of situation. I've seen many unique situations over the years that work well for all involved. Relinquishing the control does give me some anxiety. However, I feel that I can have good communication with his teacher and stay informed. I check his homework and read over the class work that comes home.

The call of motherhood never takes a day off. I've just been informed that CJ has shoved a ball of cheese up his nose. 

1 comment:

Michele said...

Oh hon... It's okay... I think most (all???) mother's have a control freak streak in them.